


On Wings Like Eagles

by estelraca



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3351674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/pseuds/estelraca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valjean, a gargoyle with little understanding of humanity, is taken in by a priest who believes all sentient beings belong to God.  Years later, his adopted daughter Cosette learns to deal with her own inhuman nature through the aid of a ghost and a werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Wings Like Eagles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afamiliardog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afamiliardog/gifts).



> Written for the Les Miserables Holiday Exchange, February 2015 edition, for afamiliardog. I loved all four of the prompts, though I only managed to write two of them.

_On Wings Like Eagles'_

"I know you're out there."

The old priest—new to the church, having taken over six weeks ago—stands staring up at the washed-out stars just managing to speckle the sky despite the city's bright lights. His grey hair is carefully combed, though it flutters invitingly in the stiff breeze that eddies down the street. He tucks his hands deeper into his pockets, breath puffing out in little white clouds, and continues to stand staring upward.

"You don't have to be afraid." The priest speaks calmly, at a standard volume, as though holding a conversation with an invisible person.

Valjean stares down silently from his perch on the roof, lips curled back in their standard snarl. If he stays still and silent, the priest will have no way to tell him from the rest of the statuary that lines the roof, no way to say that he is something that doesn't belong—and he _does_ belong, has been hunting here for over a year.

Over a minute passes in silence, the priest's breath coming in even droughts. "I know what you are."

_That_ startles Valjean, and he can feel his fingers and toes flex on the edge of the roof. What is he to do? There are still too many people about for him to simply swoop down and claim the priest as his next meal.

"Maybe not exactly what you are, but close enough. I don't care. We are all God's children, no matter what gifts we have." The priest snaps his fingers together, and a curl of light shines up, a brief flash of flame that shouldn't be. "And no matter what others say about our gifts."

Valjean doesn't dare to breathe, his eyes still fixed on the old man. A wizard, then? He has heard of human practitioners, but he has never met one—just as he has heard of but never met a great many of the creatures who supposedly hunt the night with him.

"I know what you did." The priest blows out a long sigh, a string of white fog like a beard blowing in front of him. "I want to talk to you about it, that's all. I'll leave the door unlocked. Come in when you're feeling ready."

Valjean can feel his eyes crinkling in surprise. _Him?_ Invited into a _church_?

"We are all God's children, hunter." The priest smiles up at the stars, his eyes never picking Valjean out of the darkness, for all that his words seem to address Valjean's thoughts. "I would see what kind of child you are, and what kind of deal we can make."

The priest turns on his heel and walks into the church, back straight, hands still in his pockets.

It is five hours before Valjean creeps down, in the dead of night, and tries the door handle.

Unlocked.

Ridiculous, in this neighborhood, but the old priest is mad, anyhow, to invite something like Valjean into the church.

Though since he has... since he has opened the door of the sanctuary with his words...

Valjean is holding his breath as he slides into the church, his wings clamped down tight to his back, his tail looped around his waist, his taloned, three-toed feet treading on the carpet as though it were fire.

It doesn't burn him, though. There is no chorus of angels, no clap of thunder, no eviction of the monster from the church of the blessed.

Standing with more confidence, Valjean stalks from the foyer into the church proper, his hand coming to rest delicately on the back of one of the pews. What does the church look like by day, lit by more than just the flickering prayer candles? What does it look like with light falling in through the windows, rainbows depicting the death and torture man is capable of visiting on the other?

"You came."

Valjean turns with a snarl, wings snapping out to fan above his head. His arms immediately extend to either side, clawed fingers curling and uncurling.

"Peace, brother." The old priest _smiles_ at him, though the small lantern that he holds in his right hand should show him more than enough of Valjean to evoke terror. "I'm glad that you took me up on my offer. Would you care to come with me and share a bit of bread and wine?"

Valjean blinks, uncertain how to proceed.

"If you'd prefer not to, that's fine." The priest shrugs. "I must admit to having only the faintest notion of what gargoyles eat."

Valjean tilts his head to the right. "Gargoyle?"

"That is what you are, is it not?" The priest takes a step closer, raising the lantern so that he can see Valjean more clearly. "Yes, definitely appear gargoyle-like. I will admit to having far more practice with werewolves, the various flavors of vampires, the fey courts, and nephilim, but I do try to keep up with all the various species out there. Unless you have another name for yourself?"

Valjean blinks, straightening. It feels just a little too... foolish to maintain the aggressive stance when the priest, who is a good meter shorter than him, is clearly unimpressed. "I'm a demon, aren't I?"

The priest makes a _tsk_ ing sound in the back of his throat. "A common misconception, once shared by those of my kind in the cloth. Not that I've ever held much stock in demons in general—why would a loving God deem some of his creation beyond redemption?"

Valjean finds himself taking an involuntary step back as the priest comes even closer. "Uh... because we're bad?"

"And have you done bad things?" The priest meets Valjean's gaze evenly, expression suddenly grave.

"I'm a _monster_." Valjean flexes his wings out again, but the priest just gazes at them admiringly. "I kill things to survive."

"So do a great many people—everyone who isn't vegan, I would say." The priest sighs. "But you, my brother... you have killed a person, have you not?"

Valjean is silent, flexing his toes so that his claws dig into the carpet, spreading his wings enough to give himself proper balance. He has not had good luck facing off against other supernatural beings before, but this priest is old. If he can just strike quickly—

"Why?" The priest's expression is sad rather than condemning as he looks up into Valjean's eyes. "Why him?"

Valjean swallows, remembering the way the man's flesh tasted as he devoured him. Remembering the salty-sweet taste of his blood, and the work that Valjean had needed to do to clean all the blood from his body when he was done. Remembering the way the man smelled _clean_ after he died, no longer coated in cloying, choking clouds of rage and hatred and inflicted pain. And for the first time in his life Valjean blurts out the truth, though he knows what is going to happen when he does. "I killed him because he was bad."

The priest's head tilts just slightly. "Bad as you are bad? Something supernatural?"

Shaking his head, Valjean tries to scrounge together the proper words to explain what he means. "He felt... wrong. Every time he came it was worse. Pain, bitter and rancid at the same time. Anger, sour and hot. And those with him, the small humans—the _children—_ they were starting to smell like him. Like walking death and despair. So I chose him, and I took him, and now they don't smell so bad anymore."

"No. Their pain is... cleaner now, though no pain can be truly clean. Less tainted by the sins of their father being pressed upon them, at least." The priest frowns up at Valjean, his expression still thoughtful rather than hate-filled, no sign of fire at his fingertips. "I was going to get them out of that home as soon as I had the proof I needed. To save the children without condemning the father."

Now it is Valjean's turn to frown in confusion. "Condemning him to what?"

"To eternal punishment for what he did. To meeting his Maker with his children's blood and hope and innocence on his hands." The priest's hands sketch out a quick sign of the cross, almost of their own accord. "No one is beyond salvation until they're dead, after all."

"I have to eat." Once more Valjean flexes his wings. "And if your God is so forgiving while you are alive, why is he so cruel once you're dead?"

The priest blinks up at him, and then a smile curls across his face. "A theological debate with a gargoyle. Appropriate enough, I suppose."

"Why?" Again Valjean is at a loss for words. Nothing his mother taught him in the brief two years before she was hunted down has prepared him to deal with a human like this.

"Do you know what the original myth behind the gargoyle was, my brother? Why they were carved and placed on rooftops?" The priest places the lantern down on the ground between them, a pool of light that casts strange shadows up onto their faces.

Could he say that the statues were carved to better provide places for the gray-skinned monsters like Valjean to blend in? Unlikely that was the cause, no matter how many of Valjean's people managed to steal a human disguise, and Valjean eventually shakes his head, deciding that the priest is not going to continue until he makes some gesture.

"Gargoyles were demons who had been redeemed by God and given the charge of protecting the church." The priest spreads his hands out in front of him, fingers splayed—a gesture of good faith from a wizard, who frequently used small hand gestures to activate particular spells. "If you are willing, that is something I would like to offer you."

Valjean squints down at the man, trying to suss out his meaning.

The priest smiles back up at him, serene. "I'd like to offer you a job, brother. If you will promise not to eat anyone else, I will provide food, clothing, and a human guise in exchange for your help with my ministry."

"Ministry?"

"Yes. Bringing peace and God to both the human and the not human members of my flock."

"Why?" Narrowing his eyes at the old man in suspicion, Valjean takes a step back. "Why me?"

"Because you are here, and you have shown at least some compassion, even if I wish you had not acted in quite so... conclusive a manner." The priest maintains his open, unguarded position. "You are free to choose, of course. I am not above buying souls, but I cannot force you to accept my terms."

"But if I do..." Valjean stares down at the old man, still not quite believing his ears. "You bring me into your household? Into the house of God?"

"I do."

"I..." Reaching a hand up to his face, Valjean feels at the small horns growing from the sides of his forehead, at the pointed ears and the flat nose. "I... accept?"

"Wonderful!" The old man claps his hands together. "Baptistine, Magloire, please come meet our new guest!"

Light suddenly erupts from the ceiling, and Valjean jumps hastily back, finding himself stumbling on the steps up to the altar.

It isn't an attack, though. It is simply two women walking up the aisle to flank the priest on either side. The shorter, stockier one glares daggers at Valjean. "Really, Myriel, are you _certain_ that this is—"

"Magloire." The taller woman, whose features bear some resemblance to the priest's, shakes her head. "Myriel is certain. His dreams haven't failed us yet, have they?"

The priest, who must be Myriel, continues to smile serenely at Valjean. "This is my sister Baptistine. She is quite the pyromancer, and was, I will admit, my protection this evening. And this is her wife, Magloire, a woman whose skills lie more to the... transformative side of magic. If you wish, she can make you appear human."

A growl rises up in Valjean's chest, rumbles out into the church. "I won't give up what I am."

"I wouldn't ask you to." The priest's smile vanishes. "You are who and what you are, brother. I just want to help guide your talents, if you'll allow, for the benefit of all."

"By making me look human?"

"By making it so people aren't immediately afraid of you." Myriel sighs. "Because as much as I am trying to change hearts and minds, there are a great many who would be immediately afraid if they were to come across you looking like that."

"Humans _hunt_ us."

"Because you hunt them. As you yourself just admitted." A glitter enters Myriel's eye. "Though there is little hunting now. The vampires and fae have been quite effective in their campaign to make the supernatural denizens a shadow of an unscientific past, believed in only by the mad or the foolish. Has it not been to the benefit of all the supernatural?"

"The vampires look human, the fae human and _pretty_." Valjean sniffs. "For some of us, hiding is the better option."

"But to be separated from society is to become detached from it—to become detached from ones' fellow creatures." Myriel steps forward, holding out his hand to Valjean. "Give me six months. Six months to show you the joys of society, both the human world and the shadow-world of God's hidden children. If you don't wish to stay at the end, I'll let you go free, to wherever you want."

Valjean studies the trio before him uncertainly. They are human. They are part of the priesthood—those who historically stood between humanity and the rest of the sentient beings of the earth.

But they seem... honest. Open in their welcome and in their hesitancy, and somehow it is Magloire's nervous stare that decides Valjean in the end.

Reaching out, he places his large, four-fingered gray hand in Myriel's tiny human one.

Six months isn't that long, after all.

XXX

Cosette knows that her father isn't her sire.

She's known that since she was five years old, since he carried her away from the other man who was not her father, the one who yelled and hit and cursed her existence. She has only fragmented memories of that man, but they are still enough to haunt her nights.

She doesn't mind that Fauchelevant isn't her sire, because he is a wonderful father, and that matters far more.

It does make it awkward, though, when her wings begin growing in on her sixteenth birthday.

"I can't."

"But you _must_." Cosette tries not to growl in frustration as Marius, the ghost who has lived in her mirror for the last year, refuses to do what she asks. "I can't see behind my own back, and there's something _weird_ there! Tell me what it is!"

"Well, I suppose... but... oh _noooo_..."

Cosette's face takes on an icy cold feeling as Marius draws out the long, haunting negation. "Is it something terrible? Does it look like I'm dying? Is it—"

" _You aren't wearing a shirt or bra!_ " Marius' wail is loud enough that Cosette worries he may attract her father, and she makes a quick shushing gesture and sound, barely restraining from spinning around. Flashing Marius a view of her developing breasts would likely not improve his usefulness. The ghost continues his rant in a quieter tone. "I have _dishonored_ you! The one thing I swore not to do, promised you I would never do—"

"Marius, please, what are they?" Cosette keeps her voice soft, recognizing Marius' near-hysteria for caring. The ghost, though supposedly two hundred years older than her, spent the majority of that time locked in a covered mirror. It had only been when Cosette coerced her father into buying the antique for her room last year that Marius was welcomed into the twenty-first century, and he and the time period have had a difficult relationship since Cosette first introduced them. "What's growing on my back?"

"Well, they appear to be..." She can easily imagine him peeking through a hand at her back, his cheeks flushed a bright red. "Yes, they most _definitely_ are wings. Small, feathered wings protruding from each shoulder blade. They're rather beautiful, actually."

"Really?" Cosette twists her head once more in an attempt to see the tiny wings.

"Don't turn around!" Marius' shriek of mortal terror freezes Cosette in place. "I mean... do they hurt? Can you move them?"

"No to the first—there's a bit of a tingling sensation in my back, but it doesn't _hurt_ , exactly. As for the second..." Closing her eyes and concentrating, Cosette wills the muscles in her back to move in a way that would feel wing-like.

"Oh, they're flapping! Fascinating..." A brush of cold against her back can only be Marius, leaning forward from his mirror to touch her with his insubstantial hand. "Do you have any idea where they might have come from, my lady?"

"Have you ever heard of someone getting wings from a dream?" Cosette asks the question quietly, thinking of the dream that eventually drove the nightmare away last night. Flying through the air, a city of lights spread out below her, wind in her hair and a warm solid gray mass above her... the sound of enormous wings beating, enormous bat-like shadows above her against the sky...

"I have not. I could ask around, though. If you wanted." Marius makes the offer tentatively. "There are other... gifted individuals in the area. I'm sure if I stopped at one of their mirrors I could find someone with a bit more knowledge than me."

_Gifted_. It had taken her almost a month of careful work to convince Marius that she was not, in fact, a witch for being able to see, hear, and somehow free him. The fact that he hasn't started insisting she must be some other type of monster now is proof of how deep his affection for her runs—or of how good a teacher she makes, but somehow she suspects the former more than the latter. "I would appreciate it, if you didn't mind."

"As you wish. Though..." Marius hesitates. "Have you considered asking your father?"

Cosette bites her bottom lip. "I have. He doesn't like to talk about these things, though. Remember when I saw the vampire three months ago, and instead of acknowledging that I was right he had us go to church an extra time each week? _And_ he didn't ever admit that vampires were actually real, though he also didn't tell me I was crazy, unlike the others at school."

"You know that something _ate_ the creature?" Marius' mirror shivers in its frame with his shudder. "Devoured it down to the bones. Not that a monster who would stoop to hunting children deserves anything better, but..."

A warm hard body holding her tight, bat wings larger than her spread out against the sky, and Cosette has never forgotten whose wings those were. Never forgotten the gentle eyes that looked down on her and told her everything would be all right—the first time anyone had ever told her that.

Her father thinks she has, though. Wishes her to have forgotten, foists forgetting on her along with a blindness to the monsters that lurk in the shadows, and she has given up on confronting him about the supernatural without adequate proof.

Wings growing out of her back would likely be adequate proof, but what if he still refuses to discuss things with her? No, better to hunt for information on her own and then go to him when she's better prepared. Unless... "You're certain they're feathered? They're not... bat wings?"

"Definitely bird wings." There is a note of apology in Marius' voice, as though he would change them to bat wings for her if it was within his power.

"Please look into what they could be from, then." Cosette doesn't turn to the mirror, not wanting to distress Marius, but instead sidles to the side, inching closer to her bureau. "I will try to find clothes that won't be an exercise in torture while you're gone."

"I shall see you tonight then, my lady."

She can envision Marius' bow even if she can't see it, and it brings a smile to her face even as the fading of Marius' presence from the room makes her shiver with loneliness.

XXX

"I have good news for you!" Marius' cheerful voice trails off. "And bad news..."

Cosette groans. "If you're going to say that they've grown, I am going to hit you."

"All right, then I only have good news for you if you're already aware of the... exponential expansion of your new endowments."

Rolling over the bed so that she's facing the mirror—though he _can_ leave the mirror since she freed him, Marius seems most comfortable and clear when ensconced in glass, and he prefers the mirror he was trapped in most of all. Her wings stretch up above her on the bed, a glorious fall of tawny brown feathers that are gorgeous but absolutely _hideous_ to work around with regard to clothing. When she realized how quickly they were growing she had elected for a tank top with an open back—a gift from a friend that she has never had cause to wear but is now exceedingly grateful for. An old jacket with the back cut out provides warmth for her arms, but going outside is going to be untenable except for on Halloween if she doesn't figure something out soon.

Her stomach growls as she turns over, despite the fact that dinner was only two hours ago and she ate all the left-overs she could scrounge from the kitchen barely twenty minutes ago. Apparently growing monster wings is taxing and hungry work. "I could use some good news right now."

"Well, the people who moved in next door four months ago? Turns out they're all _werewolves_." Marius recounts the news in a low whisper, as though speaking something scandalous. "Or at least the children are. I actually didn't see the adults, just the five children. The eldest girl is about your age, and she said that she could identify what you are if you go over there tonight."

Cosette bites her lip, calmly assimilating the news that there are werewolves. "And you trust her?"

"Oh, yes. Eponine has been quite friendly to me since their family moved in. She saw me the first night I entered their house, but when I explained myself she laughed and said I was a strange shade but welcome so long as I caused no harm." Marius frowns as he recounts the tale. "I'm not sure she really takes me seriously, you know. She laughs at me quite a bit, but she always invites me back, as well. I don't understand."

"I doubt you would." As he turns his wounded eyes on her, Cosette smiles. "It's a different world now. Don't worry about it. If you think it's safe, I'll go. I'll just have to be quiet and not attract my dad's attention."

"Would you like me to distract him?" Marius makes the suggestion with a hopeful smile.

Imagining the ghost trying to distract her father, Cosette shakes her head. "No, that's all right. He always goes to bed early. We'll just be quiet. It's the house to the right of us?"

Marius nods. "Once it's dark, no one should be able to see you."

They live on the very outskirts of the city, and though the gray house is their closest neighbor, it is perched precariously on the edge of the flat ridge that holds the rest of the city. It will be a good twenty minute walk either way, but Cosette has faith in both her own abilities and in Marius' scouting potential. "I'll meet you outside at eleven, all right?"

With a murmur of acquiescence Marius fades from the mirror, and Cosette tries to arrange herself comfortably on the bed as she waits.

XXX

The house is ramshackle and forboding as she stands on the porch in the dark, bu Cosette keeps her head high as she lifts a hand to knock.

The door opens before she can, and a feral-looking girl in second-hand clothes glares out at her. "You're Cosette?"

Cosette nods, taken aback.

"I'm Eponine." The girl—young woman, really, and Cosette estimates that they are about the same age, though there are already wear-lines on Eponine's face and her worn clothes make her look older. "Come in and let's see what I can do to help."

Cosette enters carefully, trying to keep her wings from knocking into anything as she does. They seem to have finally stopped growing, at least, though they are enormous, reaching from above her shoulders down to her thighs. The feathers made a shivering sound every time she moves them, like the first gentle fall of water.

Eponine leans close, and Cosette leans back, but it's the wings the other girl is interested in. Her nose close to the top feathers, she takes a deep breath. "Ah. Never thought I'd smell one of these again."

Hope blooms bright in Cosette's chest. "You know what I am?"

"Yep." Eponine paces back into the house, casting a speculative look over at Cosette. "What's the information worth to ya?"

"Eponine..." Marius' voice is filled with hurt disappointment, and his apparition fades into patchy existence next to them. His voice is a soft thread, much weaker than when he speaks from his mirror. "She's my friend and she needs help."

"I have—" Cosette fumbles at her back pockets, where she shoved her driver's license and allowance before she left.

"Don't need your money." Eponine glares at her, shoulders hunching as she leads Cosette into the living room. A gaggle of four scrawny young wolves is tussling in the center of the floor, and a sound that is half-growl, half-yip from Eponine draws their attention. "Go get human, brats. We have company."

One of the wolf-puppies writhes, fur disappearing, and before Cosette is quite sure what she's seeing a naked human boy of about ten years old is staring at her. "Marius aint a guest, he's a friend. And _she's_... what is she?"

"A guest." Eponine raises her head. "So move it, puppies. And you three make sure Azelma dresses properly—pants _and_ a shirt _and_ underwear, got it? She can't spend all her time as a wolf, easy as it sometimes feels."

"Orders taken, commander." The naked boy snaps off a salute with a cheeky grin. "Leave it to Captain Gavroche."

True to his word the boy rounds the others up, leaving the living room seeming bare and empty.

Cosette shivers, realizing for the first time how cold the house is.

"Sorry. No heat unless it's super cold. Daddy dearest didn't have enough money in the bank when I killed him for us to waste it on anything unnecessary."

Hands locked on her arms where they had been chafing the skin for warmth, Cosette turns her eyes to Eponine. Did she just say...

"He sold us to the wolves." Eponine smiles thinly. "Not the first time he did it. Sold Mom to the vamps before that; has used the rest of us for various deals when he thought it was useful. Turns out selling us to a pack that was desperate for new members because someone was hunting them wasn't the best idea he ever had. When the rest of the pack was killed I got the kids out, we came back, and I made sure he wouldn't ever hurt us again."

"I..." Cosette tries to wrap her mind around the story that Eponine just spit out as though it were a simple conversation starter. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not. And I figured I'd be up front with you, since you're clearly new to this whole shadow-side thing. It's not a pretty life. Not for the people involved, either. Dad's played that side of the field too, you know—providing weapons to the hunters. Bastard did whatever he thought would put him on top. But us supernatural nasties, we've got some nice things going for us. Like claws and teeth and healing." Eponine draws in a deep breath. "Or, in your case, wings and magic."

Forcing her hands to release her arms, Cosette faces Eponine evenly. "What am I?"

There's a flicker of surprise and what Cosette thinks is appreciation in Eponine's face as she circles Cosette. "You're a nephilim. The child of a human and one of the most inhuman of the supes. They're often called angels or demons, but since I don't hold much truck with gods I'm not sure if that's the right name for them. Not many of your kind around. You tend to get picked up quick by the church and dealt with."

_Demon spawn... Satan's get... kill you when the evil shows..._

She had thought the man who torments her dreams still meant only what all abusers meant when they insulted their victims.

Clearly he had known something she didn't.

It doesn't matter. She makes the choice quickly, viciously, because the alternative is to sink into a ball on Eponine's floor and refuse to move. Her father took her away on wings that weren't human, to a life of love and church and God, and surely if she were _really_ a demon child she couldn't spend so much time on holy ground. So the only thing that matters is that she is half-something-special, and there are wings on her back, and she needs to learn how to deal with them. "I have magic?"

"Yeah. Of course." Eponine jerks a finger towards Marius. "How do you think you freed this guy from his jail and gave him a tether to stay in the world? Magic. I've heard nephs tend to be super-strong, with multiple talents."

Biting her bottom lip hard, Cosette focuses just on the words and what they could mean. "Talents?"

"Specialties. Things their magic is good at. Like pyromancy or precognition or teleportation or ghost-binding or disguises or even outright transformations. Rumor is that it was nephs that created the vamps and the weres, though we're self-propagating now and heaven help you if you tell a were or a vamp that the nephs or the wizards made them." Eponine's lips curl into a slow, satisfied smile. "You're taking this really well, you know?"

"Screaming and hiding aren't going to help, yeah?" Cosette can feel that her smile is shaky, but the fact that she _can_ smile is what matters most. "I don't suppose you know much about... neph magic?"

Eponine is quiet for a few moments. "The way I see it, your main problem is those giant wings, right?"

"They are rather obvious and difficult to hide."

"Well, the only other neph I ever saw—a wizard that the pack who Changed the five of us kept for emergencies—he could hide his wings. Used his magic. And it felt a lot like my Change magic." Eponine shrugs. "Maybe if you study what I do—what the brats do—you can figure it out? Otherwise we'll have to find you a wizard or a neph teacher, and that... might be difficult."

"Right now I think I'd like to keep the number of people who know to a minimum." Cosette draws a steadying breath. "So let me see what you can do, and I'll see what I can do, and maybe we can help each other."

XXX

It takes her until dawn of the first night with Eponine to learn to shield her wings from sight, but she manages it.

She doesn't tell her father about the wings. She should, she supposes, but she can't quite find a time to bring it up. Does she tell him at breakfast? At dinner? When they're reading quietly? Especially when he seems so _happy_ recently, as though a weight has been lifted off him that she didn't ever realize was present. A wariness missing from his eyes when he looks at her, and she doesn't want it to return.

So instead she tells him about Eponine and her siblings. She tells him that she was staying with them for the night. She brings the family over for the day, and it takes little coaxing to convince him to help her get new clothes for all five of them.

After a month and swearing him to secrecy she tells him that Eponine's father has abandoned them, and that Eponine is caring for the rest of her family. (She doesn't tell him that Eponine showed her where her father's bones are buried in the back yard, or that Eponine cried silently when she told Cosette what her father's flesh tasted like.)

She learns how to use her powers, the magic that trickles in slowly. She learns how difficult the dreams that show her glimpses of the future can be, how changeable and yet oddly stubborn fate can be. She learns to call the wind, at first unintentionally when she is frightened and then intentionally when she wants it. She learns to hide things so that only she can see them.

The one thing she doesn't learn to do is fly.

Eponine urges her to try it, coaxes her as far as the window on the second floor of her house, but Cosette can't bring herself to jump. What if her wings don't work? Better to fly in her dreams than crash in reality, and there are plenty of other tasks to distract herself with.

She thinks, for two months, that perhaps everything will still be all right. Perhaps nothing will really change. Perhaps she will simply have two lives—her sunlight life with her father, and her shadow-side life with Eponine and Marius and Gavroche.

Then Marius bursts into her room in the dead of night, and everything falls apart.

"A _man_!" Marius' voice is full of terror and anger. "A priest, but he's doused around the house with gasoline and he's shooting at them with _silver_ and Eponine has them hiding in the upper floor but Cosette I don't know—"

She doesn't wait for him to stop babbling. Instead she draws on pants and one of the backless shirts she has taken to wearing, drops the disguise on her wings, and runs to her father's room.

He doesn't yell at her. He doesn't ask her for an explanation. He just takes one look at her wings, draws a breath as though the weight of the world were settling on his shoulders again, and nods his head.

She isn't sure how coherent her recital of Marius' narrative is. Not much better than his, she thinks, but it does the job, and before she has finished speaking they are out the door and on their way to Eponine's house.

She has never loved her father more than she does as he holds her hand and runs to save her friends, not even when he flew her from hell into heaven on his hidden demon's wings.

XXX

Her father knows the priest attacking Eponine.

_Javert_.

She is certain that was the name that he growled out before his human form slid away, revealing a gray-scaled monster with wings that made hers seem small and scrawny.

With a shove he had sent her towards the house, which is burning, fire licking up in fumes that reek of gasoline. _Save your friends_ , he had said, and that is what she is doing.

She finds them huddled at the back window, the one with the beautiful view overlooking the drop-off of the mountain. The one farthest from the flames and the man who was trying to kill them, but also farthest from safety. Eponine stands in front of her siblings, her shoulder bleeding sluggishly, a kitchen cleaver clutched tight in both hands.

"Cosette?" The look on Eponine's face is a mixture of hope and horror. "You can't be here. He'll kill you just as sure as us. He'll—"

Whatever else she is going to say is swallowed in a coughing fit, and Cosette hurriedly enters the room. "He won't kill any of us. My father's dealing with him, and I'm going to get you out of here."

"How?" Gavroche stares up at her from his crouch in front of his older sister and smaller brothers. "The house is burnin'. We can smell it. Can't get out, he'll shoot silver-poison like he did at Eponine."

Cosette glances at the window and draws a breath. That was a mistake, because she immediately begins to cough on the smoke, but she hopes her resolve shows through anyway. "We're going to fly."

Gavroche looks from her to the window, and a sly smile blooms into a vicious grin on his face before he throws up his hand and whoops. "All _right_! Little ones first. Come on, boys. Into our favorite neph's arms, there you go."

Eponine watches quietly from her guard post in front of the door as Gavroche ties the smallest children to Cosette. "Are you sure about this?"

"No." Cosette nods for Gavroche to open the window. "But I'm doing it anyway. I'll be back for you soon, so stay alive. Promise!"

Eponine smiles, a flash of uneven teeth that Cosette has grown very fond of over the last few months. "Promise."

And then Cosette jumps.

She doesn't allow herself to think about it. She just throws herself from the window, spreading her wings wide, and prays that they will be enough to at least slow her fall.

The wind sings past her ears, a familiar song, and before she knows it she is whistling in time with it, coaxing tendrils under her wings, speeding the air above her and slowing the air below and her wings are beating, a beautiful unfamiliar tension, and—

"We're _flying!_ " The boy's scream is an expression of pure joy, and Cosette remembers bat-wings against a starry sky.

"You're flying." Cosette laughs as she repeats the boy's words. "And everything is going to be all right."

XXX

She brings Eponine down the mountain; her father brings Gavroche and Azelma, his form terrifying and wondrous in the moonlight.

"He isn't dead." Her father says the words in a gruff voice. "And he'll come again, if he has your scent. He never gives up a chase. If you want to live, you'll have to run."

"Not like we haven't done that before." Eponine has bound her right arm, the one with the injured shoulder, to her chest.

Cosette rests her fingers on Eponine's back, wishing she had the power to heal.

"We'll be fine." Gavroche grins a gap-toothed smile at them. "Don' have no wings, but paws'll do just as good most times."

"Most times." Her father inclines his head in a grave nod before turning to her. "He knows I'm here now, Cosette. He'll chase me, too. It's only been luck that's kept me from his sight for this long."

Cosette finds herself frozen, unable to answer the silent question in his eyes.

Her father smiles, an expression that is familiar in his eyes but strange on his fanged mouth. "I can get you somewhere safe. I still have contacts with Myriel's people. They'll be ecstatic to know you're a true nephilim and a devoted believer... unless that was a ruse, as well?"

"No, papa." Crossing the distance to his side, she takes his large, inhuman hand between her two. "I've never lied to you. Just... didn't quite tell all the truth."

"So I can give you a good life. A safe life. Just... give me a few days." He smiles, and it is such a sad expression it brings tears to Cosette's eyes. "A few days and you'll never have to see me again."

" _No_." The word seems to echo in the forest around them, a power behind it that echoes in Cosette's bones. "No, papa. If safety means being without you, then I don't want to be safe. Where you go, I go."

"Cosette, child..." His shoulders seem to slump. "I'm a monster. You can see that now, can't you?"

"I see wings." Reaching up, she touches the membrane of his wing tentatively. "And though they may not look like eagle's wings, they're the wings that have raised me up. The wings that sheltered me. Where you go, I go."

After long seconds Gavroche is the one who breaks the silence. "Which means, maybe, that we could go together?"

Eponine answers grudgingly. "I guess, if they wanted to come with us..."

"We're all going together." Cosette makes the declaration firmly, and after a staring contest that feels like it takes hours she sees her father's chest rise and fall in the sigh that means she's won. "We'll make a new life together, like family should. And if it gets broken again, we'll pick up and find another path, until we've found a place that's ours."

Shaking his head, Valjean sighs aloud. "If that's what you wish."

"And me?" Marius' voice is soft. "Do... do you want me to come?"

"Course, idiot." Eponine swipes at the shimmering air where Marius' shoulder would be if he still had physical form. "Or don't you think you're family?"

Cosette doesn't know if Marius or her father or Eponine is smiling more broadly as they make their way through the forest and toward a watery dawn.

She does know that she loves all their smiles, and as they head toward an uncertain future, that one truth is enough to give her heart wings.


End file.
